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To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest (attainment); not to know (and yet think) we do know is a disease.
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“To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest (attainment); not to know (and yet think) we do know is a disease.”

Lao Tzu

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Source
Tao Teh King
Date
ancient
English wording
James Legge — Translator · from Classical Chinese
Meaning

Meaning of “To know and yet (think) we do not…”

The chapter values an awareness of the limits of knowledge and treats false certainty as a disorder of judgment, making intellectual humility a form of protection against confident ignorance.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Tao Teh King, Chapter 71, James Legge translation, Project Gutenberg #216.

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DeepHumilityMindPhilosophyThinking Quotes About Reasoning, Reflection & JudgmentThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionUnderstandingWisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living WellDoubtKnowledgePerspectiveSelf-AwarenessSpiritual
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The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.
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“The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.”

The Dhammapada · The Dhammapada · ancient
Meaning & context

The verse treats recognition of one’s own foolishness as the beginning of wisdom, while self-certainty without understanding becomes a deeper form of ignorance.

Source details

Dhammapada 63, Chapter V, “The Fool,” F. Max Müller translation, Project Gutenberg #2017. The verse belongs to a Buddhist canonical collection and remains a textual source voice rather than a modern individual-author quotation.

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I neither know nor think that I know.
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“I neither know nor think that I know.”

Plato · Apology · c. 399 BCE setting
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Socrates
Meaning & context

Socrates locates a small advantage in recognizing the boundary of his own knowledge: uncertainty is intellectually healthier than possessing the same ignorance while mistaking it for wisdom.

Source details

Plato, Apology, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1656. Socrates says this after examining a politician whom others considered wise; the wording is dialogue speech attributed to Socrates within Plato’s work, not a claim that Socrates knew literally nothing.

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We hear only the questions to which we are capable of finding an answer.
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“We hear only the questions to which we are capable of finding an answer.”

Friedrich Nietzsche · The Joyful Wisdom · 1910
Meaning & context

The aphorism suggests that inquiry is limited by the conceptual capacities of the person asking, making intellectual growth partly a matter of becoming able to formulate and recognize better questions.

Source details

The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 196; Thomas Common translation.

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Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.
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“Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.”

John Locke · An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I · 1690
Meaning & context

Locke places useful limits around intellectual ambition: human inquiry need not comprehend everything in order to guide life well, and knowing where understanding stops is part of using it responsibly.

Source details

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Book I, Chapter I, section 6, Project Gutenberg #10615. Locke follows his sounding-line analogy by saying that our business is not to know all things but those concerning conduct. The passage belongs to seventeenth-century epistemology and moral reflection, not a modern cognitive-science finding.

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Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are.
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“Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are.”

Friedrich Nietzsche · Human, All-Too-Human · 1909
Meaning & context

The warning is that simplified partial explanations can spread more easily precisely because they remove the complications that fuller understanding would have to preserve.

Source details

Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 578, “Partial Knowledge”; Helen Zimmern translation; sentence shortened before the final clause about popularity and persuasion.

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He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
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“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”

John Stuart Mill · On Liberty · 1859
Meaning & context

Understanding a position requires serious contact with competing arguments; familiarity with only one side can produce confidence without real comprehension.

Source details

On Liberty, Chapter 2; Mill argues for open discussion because opposing views expose weaknesses and sharpen understanding.

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